Abstract

Optical microscopy provides noninvasive imaging of biological tissues at subcellular level. The optical aberrations induced by the inhomogeneous refractive index of biological samples limits the resolution and can decrease the penetration depth. To compensate refractive aberrations, adaptive optics with Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensing has been used in microscopes. Wavefront measurement requires light from a guide-star inside of the sample. The scattering effect limits the intensity of the guide-star, hence reducing the signal to noise ratio of the wavefront measurement. In this paper, we demonstrate the use of interferometric focusing of excitation light onto a guide-star embedded deeply in tissue to increase its fluorescent intensity, thus overcoming the excitation signal loss caused by scattering. With interferometric focusing, we more than doubled the signal to noise ratio of the laser guide-star through scattering tissue as well as potentially extend the imaging depth through using AO microscopy.

Cited By

OSA is able to provide readers links to articles that cite this paper by participating in CrossRef's Cited-By Linking service. CrossRef includes content from more than 3000 publishers and societies. In addition to listing OSA journal articles that cite this paper, citing articles from other participating publishers will also be listed.